457 
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Ss5 



I;IK1:^M:A;N 





Qass. 
Book. 



:^ d- f; 7 



V 



f I 



UPON 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



DELIVERED APRIL 19, 1865, 



AT THE 



U. S. A. GENEBAL HOSPITAL, 



URAFTOW, WEST VA., 



BY 



STji^a-. s. ivT. si3:Ei^:M:^isr, jj,. s. ^. 



(IN CHARGE. 



GRAFTON: 

D. F. SHRINER, PRINTEB. 

1865. 



UPON 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



DELIVERED APRIL 19, 1865, 

AT THE 

U, 8. A. GENERAL HOSPITAL, 

GRAFTO.^, WEST VA., 

BY 
(IN CHARGE. ) 



GRAFTON: 

D. F. SHBINER, PRINTER. 

1865. 



1898 



555 



} 



U. S. A. General Hospital, 

Gbajton, West Virginia, 

April 19th, 1865. 
Surgeon S. N. Shbbman, U, S. Vols., (in charge)— 
y Sir: — The officers, on behalf of ourselvei 

»nd patiente, respectfully request that you address us this after- 
Boon, commemorative to the occasion of the death of the Chief Exec- 
iii?e of the United States. 

[Signed] John W. Beger, Chaplain U. S. A. 

John E. Miller, A. A. Surgeon U. S. A, 
G. H. Brown, A. A. Surgeon, U. S. A. 
Wm. French, U. 5. A. 
W. G. Axe, U. S. A, 
Frederick Gillman, U, S. A. 



U. S. A. General Hospital, ^ 

GiiAFToN, West Virginia, V 
April 20th, 1865. j 
S. N. Sherman, Surgeon TJ. S, Volunteers : 

Sir: — We respectfully solicit for publicatioa 
A copy of the eulogy you delivered upon the occasion of the deatk 
of our beloved President, Abraham Lincoln. 
Very Respectfully, 

Yoor Obedient Servants, 
J. W. Rkger, Chaplain U. S. A. 
John E. Miller, A. A, S., U. S. A. 
G. H. Brown, A. A. S., U. S. A. 
Wm. French, U. &'. A. 
Wesley G. Axe, U. S. A. 
Frederick Gillman, U. S. A. 
Jesse Teter, Com. Bd. En. 2nd Bis. W. Va. 
Thomas Kennedy, Surgeon Board En. 
James EvaN-s Capt. ^ Fro. 31ar. 
M. A. Himan. 



} 



U. S. A. General Hospital, 

Grafton, West Virginia, 

May 6th, 1865. 
G-entlemen: — Understanding it to be a nearly unanimous wish 
of ibe inmates of this hospital to have a, copy of the remarks I 
made before them and the citizens of this, place, on the occasion of 
the President's Funeral, and in compliance with the request of my 
colleagues here, backed by that of sundry officers and citizens out- 
side, for whose opinions I entertain only respect, I hereby assent, 
though my judgment does not, to your publishing the same, and 
iransmit herewith a manuscript copy. 
Very Respectfully, 

S. N Sherman, 

Surgeon U. S. Fb?s., [in charge.) 
To Chaplain Reqer, U. S. A. 

A. A. Surgeon John E. Miller, U. S. A. 
♦' *' Geo. H. Brown, U. S. A. 

Hospital Steward Wm. French, U. S. A. 
'' W. G. Axe, U. S. A. 

" " F. Gillman, U. S. A. 

Major M. A. Himan. 
Captain James Evans, 
" Jesse Teters. 
Thos. Kennedy, Surgeon Bd. En. 



^ Delivered ^pril 19,1865, 

At the U. SfL General Hospital, Grafton, W, Va., 

BY SURGEON S. N. SHERMAN, U. S. Y., (In Charge.) 



U. S. A. General Hospital, "^ 

Grafton, West Virginia, V 

April 19tb, 1865. j 
Ladies, My Fellow Soldiers, and Countrymen : 

We are gathered here uuder circumctances the most 
painful and appalling that can befall o< people. But yeaterdaj, as 
it were, the welkin rang with oar paeans of joy over the recent 
triumph of our arms, and the ol /ious close of the life-struggle 
through which the nation had passed, and from which was emerging 
into peace, with conditions that forbid the slightest apppreheniion 
that another attempt to divide will be repeated for centuries to 
come. After a four years' "carnival of blood," this people hoped 
the reign of violence and crime was about to cease, that the soldier, 
his "occupation gone," was to resume the citizen, and that whilfe 
the arts of peace and the hum of industry and commerce were 
about to resume their sway, the earth would not withhold from the 
patient husbandman her accustomed increase, and that not only 
peace, but plenty and happiness, were about to crown our stricken 
>affld bleeding land. 



Duly grateful to God that He had given U3 in our Chief Magis- 
trate a leader that had guided this people through an intestine war 
beside which all other wars are dwarfed intq proportions that seem 
insignificant, and brought us in sight of the end — that end, too, so 
triumphant, so glorious, as almost to outstrip the hopes even of 
those of us the most sanguine : this second Moses — whom it will 
act be held irreverent, I trust, to think or say that God Tt/ised up 
for this special work, a greater than ever the Jewish Lawgiver had 
to perform — strong in his reliance on Divine aid, never faltered or 
hesitated in his course, pursuing it ever, though with the humility 
of the christian, and all the tenderness of heart toward every re- 
pentant rebel that warmed in the bosom of the father to the return- 
ing pf' V ;a.l, who could have deemed such a man — such a life — in 
danger ol the assassin's blow ? 

Abraham Lincoln, by his wisdom in directing, his undeviating 
persistence in measures to put down all traitoroua'resistance to the 
law and Constitutional Government, his kindness of heart, his sym- 
pathy with public feeling, and, above all, his stern determination in 
the progress of the rebellion that Slavery Should Die, had come 
to be the recipient of little short of the nation's idolatry, with a 
prospect of many years of usefulness and happiness, in the fruition 
of the nation's gratitude and the fullness of her love. The signs 
of the times seemed to promise that his lot was to be an exception 
to that of national benefactors in most ages and countries, and that 
the reward for shining qualities of mind and heart and noble deeds, 
80 seldom awarded until the possessor or doer has passed away, or 
is insensible to praise, would be his inheritance while yet in active 
life, and before the icy fingers of age had blunted his sensibilities 
or chilled his heartstrings. 

But how suddenly — how sadly — have our anticipations, all our 
fond forebodings of a brillant, a useful, and happy future, which all 
deemed before him, been blighted, been dissipated, melted away, 
and are gone like the stuff that dreams are made of ! Abraham 
Lincoln is dead ! the loved, the trusted and honored of this lat* so 
suffering, but yesterday joyous people — ^joyous in this happy deliv- 
ery just dawning, and which with truth, they ascribed under God 
to Ills skill, firmness, courage and'presci'^nce — to-day is being laid 
in that receptacle of all livinj? — the grave : all that is mortal of 
the Chief Magistrate of the Republic, the saviour of the nation,, 
embalmed in her bve, his memory consecrated by her gratitude to 
immortality, is at this moment being committed "earth to earth, 
ashes to ashes, dust to dust !" -while thirty millions of people, not 
only draped in all the outward semblance of grief and symbols of 
woe, but with eyes swollen with weeping, kud hearts wrung to, 



9 

Barstiog, laying agide all other avot;ation9 and thoughts, have dedi- 
cated thia day, this nineteenth day of April, now thrice memorable, 
to burying, and bewailing on whom they had learned to love, to> 
trust, and to revere, as more to each than father, son, or brother. 
The greatest, wisest, purest, and best of nnn in any age since the 
Christian era, died when Abraham Lincoln fell! And those of my 
hearets numbering the fewest years, will live to see the verdict of 
an intelligent, impartial, and discriminating future affirm and ratify 
fho proposition. 

Mr. Lincoln's history, before or since he became prominent in 
national affairs, I need not detain you to recite ; it is, and will be, 
the theme of universal eulogy, in all languages and in all lands^ 
away down through the coming centuries, and will be studied and 
cited in all ages and climes, where wisdom and prescience, in de- 
vising, courage and firmness in executing, with purity of morals, 
kindness of heart, with faith, and trust in God, are held in rever- 
ence and admiration, and deemed qualities desirable to be incul- 
cated with the young, and strengthened with the middle-aged and 
old. 

Born, as Abraham Lincoln was, among the yeomanry, and in 
his childhood and youth not exempted from the necessity of learn- 
ing by experience those stern but salutary lessons, no where s* 
well learned as in the school of poverty and hard- practical labor, 
and which, and only which, can place us in that close sympathy 
with, and clear understanding of, the feeling?, hopes, ambitions^ 
desires, and interests of the "toiling millions" who constitute th»^ 
defence and reliance of the commonwealth, and without which sym- 
pathy and understanding, none are so well qualified to discharge tht 
duties of Chief Magistrate of the Republic, or to appreciate, in all 
its bearings, the responsibilities of the mission involved in thai 
office — the people of course loved him, honored him, believed and 
trusted in him. Mr. Lincoln, thus schooled, and no inapt or idle 
scholar, better understood, perhaps, the opinions, the feelings and 
wishes of the people than any of his predecessors — a knowledge 
tlmt has been to him of infinite service and an element in his suc- 
cess. How often has it been remarked of him, that of all men he 
seemed best to understand public opinion, which he read intuitively, 
and while nowhere altempting to lead it, he was never found lag- 
ging in its rear ? And thus he graduated his plans and adapted 
his measures in the progress of this war so nicely and accurately ta 
the popular mind and feelings, that all that he did, or said, Beemed 
to the people but the reflex of the conclusions they had already 
arrived at, and the carrying them out in practical action ; they,, 
hence, accorded him their heartiest approval and co-operation. 



10 

Many felt — and among them your speaker frankly acknowledges 
himself to have heen one — that in the early stages of the war, 
when the patriotic Fremont essayed to throttle the rebellion by 
shutting off its breath of life (slavery), Mr. Lincoln should have 
strengthened his hand and sustained his measures ; that later, when 
the impetuous Hunter called on the loyal sons of the South, black 
though they might be, and how much soever of labor or service they 
might owe to while traitors — to come into our lines and find protection 
and employment in the service of their country, and for that was 
relieved from his command and his measures disapproved and an- 
nulled, we felt that the Executive was not alive to the responsibili- 
ties of his office, nor awake to the importance of detaching the 
servile population of the South from their position as co-workera 
in the rebellion, in their character of producers of food, to subsist 
its armies, or that in his inmost heart he had resolved, come what 
might, slavery should take no harm at his hands. But, v/boa, after 
due warning on the memorable 1st of January, 1862, he S[)ed the 
shaft that "did to death" slavery in all the insurgent States, and 
conferred the boon of freedom on three millions sons and daughters 
of the Republic, withdrawing their labor from the enemy as fast as 
we occupied rebel territory, we saw the country convulsed as by the 
throes of a volcano, and apparently hesitating whether to accept 
the President's "Proclamation of Freedom" as a measure both just 
and expedient, or reject it as ill-timed, unjust and fanatical. We 
were all convinced that Mr. Lincoln judged better than we, and 
that if that important step — a step by which we not only strength- 
ened the hands of Our friends and closed the mouths of our enemies 
abroad, but gave the first deadly thrust at the rebellion — had been 
taken earlier, it might have been repudiated by the people, or at 
least have proven barren in good results. 

So, in other instances, the patience of loyal 'minds was worn 
threadbare at the long suffering of the President, and his keeping 
in his coiifiilence Generals who had not justified that confidence in 
their daily walk or conversation, nor earned their commands by 
their activity, energy, or success; but after all that commander's 
disregard of orders, and his many delinquencies, when Genial 
McClellan was relieved of his command, in November, 1862, a 
rumbling note of dissatisfaction and dissent vibrated through the 
lami, that showed it an a3t of prudence in the President to "look 
well to his ways" when preparing to Supercede the people's favor- 
ite, whether wisely or untvisely such. 

With a frame of iron that labor could not tire, and a will of 
iteel that no obstacles could daunt or turn aside from its purpose, 
Mr. Lincoln had so won upon the people's confidence and love, that 



11 

for the first time in ceary h;.lf a centnry, the world in 1864 looked 
upon the spectacle of a President cf this Republic re-elected for a 
second term — and which re-elc-ction was ohar^cterized by a unan- 
imity among the people, that had but raro examples in this nation's 
history — wbat was more ei^niiicant, from the moment the people 
a second t:me committed the I'estiiies ci the country to his guid- 
ance, the traitors who, at his first coming, hal greeted him with 
such contumely and disdain and so dc^laniiy challenged him to ths 
combat, began to manifest how imp'^rtant it was to the success of 
their cause, that other and leas able, if not les"^ honest hands, 
should grasp the helm of State — ^-and from the 8th of November, 
1864, there came up from them ia Kichmond unmistakable "eigna 
of woe that all was lost." 

In an equal degree his re-election nerved the hearts and strength- 
ened the hands of our own armies, and from that day a series of 
successes commenced, that have culminated in the capture of th© 
rebel capital, and thf» surrender to our arms of their vaunted invin- 
cible commander and his whole army, which surrender is the rebel- 
lion's death-blow. 

To Mr. Lincoln it was not j^iven to participate in the fruits which 
his ardent labors, his skillfu. policy, and wise adaptation of means 
to ends, were about to produce; like him of old, he was not per- 
mitted to enter into the "promised land" that lay so invitingly 
within the fields of vision; YiVd him, our Great Leader had done 
his allotted work which was then to be taken up by another, not 
abler, purer, or more faithful, but in some respects, perhaps, better 
adapted to carry it forward to a legitimate conclusion than the 
tender-hearted projector himeelf. 

In the meridian of the years allotted to man, in the t^igor of 
health, and in the midst of his usefulness, Abraham Lincoln, the 
trusted of the people, the beloved of the nation, the j evered and 
admired of the wurld, lest he should disappoint the people in their 
wish to see him, repaired with his family to one of those places of 
public amusement in Washington where the people 'Move to con- 
gregate," and met his death at the hand of the assassin ! who, 
in carrying out the fell purposes of a conspiracy too foul to have 
been hatched in hell, or anwhere else in God's universe outside 
the so-called "Southern Confederacy," stealthily approached at 
his back and sent the leaden death-dealing missile crashing through 
his brain ! "Oh ! what a fall was that, my countrymen ! then 
you and I and all of us fell down." Then the hopes and reliance 
of this people, the light of their eyes, and the joy of their hearts, 
were crushed and put out forever. A crime so more than hell- 
ish, that fiends stand aghast at its contemplation, accompanied hj 



12 

ihe enunciation of Virginia's motto^ "thus perish tyrant^," derived 
like her "cherished institution," froia the bloody teachings of a 
Pa^nn age, could no where find an instrument base enough to 
execute it outside the band of conspirators against the natioo's 
life — a band in view of whose crimes a Cataline is bleached into 
an "angel of light" in comparison. 

The assassination of the President in the arras of his wife and 
surrounded by the sacred love of a people he had saved; the ap- 
proach to the bedside of his Prime Minister, where, surrounded 
by his children, languishing in pain and trembling in the balance, 
between life and death, an agent whom the infernal regions 
would have disowned, and none but the "Confederacy" have ac- 
knowledged, rushed on the defen ;elsss Seward and actually cut hi$ 
throat! besides striking down, probably in death, two of his sons, 
who, in the discharge of fillial duty, had pprang to their father's 
rescue, constitute an assemblage of horrors from the contemplation 
of which history will recoil as the foulest page of the nineteenth 
century. Every instinct of humanity shudders at its contempla- 
tion, and 1 turn from this foulest blot on the age in which we live, 
this reproich that for all time must blacken the American char- 
acter in the eyes of themselves and the world, serving though, to 
she discriminating, to mark the depths of barbarism to which sla- 
very had sunk a portion of the people, to a consideration of a 
few of the consequences likely to follow, and of some of the new 
duties which the assassination of the President devolves on us aa 
a people and as individuals, and then I shall be done. 

If the conspirators have gained anything by exchanging the be- 
nevolent and forgiving Lincoln, whose heart throbbed with the 
desire to smooth over the past, and to receive back into a father's 
arms and house his erring and guilty children, in the faith that 
however much they had sinned, their punishment already had been, 
and their repentance would be in proportion — for the Jie7'y and 
trenchant Andrew Johnson, who, smarting under the personal 
wrongs he suffered in rebel Tennessee, and bent on impressing on 
the American people the lesson, that treason is an offense that 
atands pre'eminent in the great catalogue of crimes, and only to 
be expiated by that severest of penalties — death ; a man, whose 
temperament or experience will neither incline him too lightly to 
forgive, nor too soon to forget ; — then, for one, I say, they are wel- 
come to all they gain. They have slain their strongest advocate 
for mercy — in the attitude of affairs, their best friend ; and, as 
they have sown the wind, they may now expect to "reap the 
whirlwind." The reflection obtrudes itself, that, haply, God, in 
His character of avenger of, especially National, crimes, per- 



13 

WViBg that Mr. Lincoln's large and loving heart, was going to ]e\ 
oflf the guilty too leniently, decided to call hira home, and leave the 
balance of his work to an ther Jushua, who, to all human beseem- 
ing, is better fitted for the stern duties demanded by justice, than 
was his predecessor. Of this, all may feel assured — that in this 
grievous dispensation, thoug.i afflicting for a season, our Heavenly 
Father has designs of love and mercy, as well as chastisement to- 
ward us, His erring and stricken children. Let us all, then, as we 
turn away from the grave of our dead President, transfer our 
allegiance and love to his successor ; let us strengthen the heart and 
hands of our present Executive, in the trying duties before him. by 
yielding to him the same hearty confidence and strong-handed sup- 
port we all accorded Mr. Linc:)ln, and deemed so pre-eminently hig 
due; and, above all, let us never forget that our beloved country, 
and its destinies, are in the keeping and guidance of the same kind 
Providence, under the inspiration of which, we have been so success- 
fully piloted through a conflict so gigantic in its proportions, so 
desperate in its purposes, and unscrupulous in its measures, that il 
would inevitably hare rent any other Gorernment on earth, into 
fragmentary atoms. 

To the soldiers before me, on all who wear the honored lirery of 
their country's service, I would enjoin this lesson : let us all, as wt 
gather about the grave of our murdered chieftain, to pay him our 
last tribute of love, harbor no feelings of revenge ; make no vowi 
of retalliation on the abettors or perpetrators of this Heaven-defy- 
ing crime: for '* they knew not what they" did. Let us rather 
leave the punishment of rebels and traitors, so far as we individu- 
ally are concerned — none of whom will be permitted to revisit their 
homes in this, or other loyal States, except under the sanction of an 
oath to demean themselves as peaceable and law-abiding citizens — 
to the justice of that God who hath said, "Vengeance is mine, and 
I will repay," and who ever has repaid, and is, at this momenta 
visiting on the guilty people of the insurgent States, punishment 
more indiscriminate, subversive, and terrible, than ever fell on any 
people since that of the wicked inhabitants of "• the cities of th« 
plain." 

Let us all, when we return to our homes to resume the walks of 
peaceful industry, never lose sight of the honorable part we hav« 
borne in this bloody struggle to defend the nation's life, and to vin- 
dicate the rights of man. Let us see to it, that we each " walk 
worthy of the high vocation" to which we have been called, conduct- 
ing ourselves as peaceful, sober and law loving men, on whom ic 
to devolve, under God, the duty of steering the Ship of State safely 
through the shoals and quicksands that are to environ her courw 



14 

for the next few years, as we have in the last defended her against 
the assaults of treacherous enemies and recreant sons, and placed 
her again on her voyage to power, prosperity, and happiness. 

We need have no fear for the fair name and fame of Mr. Lincoln; 
posterity, should we tail, will be sure to do him justice ; the younger 
of those before me, shall see his statues occupying the place of 
honor in every chief city and Stace capital in the Republic; while 
at the Nation's Metropolis, in that city with the name of the vener- 
ated Father of his Country, a name though which that of 'Lincoln,' 
down through the coming centuries of time, is destined to emulate, a 
monument to his memory and worth will rise to pierce the clouds, 
and stand forever as a testimonial of the love and gratitude of four 
million sons and daughters of the Republic, from whose limbs, 
when Licoln spoke, the shackles fell, and who, in the plentitude of 
their manly power, redeemed, arose to give him thanks, and hail 
him as the- "Messiah;" which character was never better illustrated 
than by him to them. 

M;iy ours and our fathers' God pity, gaide, and save the Re- 
public ! 



i 



B S 72 



